


Desperate Measures

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Armstrong is THE socially awkward lesbian., Awkward Dates, Drinking & Talking, F/F, Miles plays matchmaker., Or bi/pan/omnisexual/etc. but you know., Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 21:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1279393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riza Hawkeye returns to Central after two years in Ishval, and Olivier Mira Armstrong decides to make her move, with some help from Lt. Col. Miles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desperate Measures

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "this is amazing, i just wish you would write olivier/riza fics for the rest of my life."
> 
> firus_rising pointed out that I haven't really written any non-angsty Hawkeye/Armstrong so I decided to write some. Ze headcanons Miles as dfab trans. I hadn't considered that and I'm not sure if I headcanon it, but as homage to my ole-buddy-ole-pal I figured I'd toss that out there. In any case it doesn't play a role in the fic, since, y'know, he's just Miles whether he's cis or trans or somewhere over the rainbow.
> 
> Notes: Armstrong, Mustang, Hawkeye, and Miles were all promoted post-Promised Day to lieutenant general, major general, captain, and lieutenant colonel, respectively. Everyone jumped up one rank, except Mustang, who jumped up two, because a) I'm not leaving him at brigadier general and b) as far as I'm aware, he's a major general as of ch. 108 of the manga.
> 
> The tea quote is a reference to _A Series of Unfortunate Events_ , as well as to the biblical reference that the book series was referencing in the first place. Referenception.
> 
> Unedited/unbeta'd/etc. Enjoy!

“Your tea, sir.”

Lieutenant Colonel Miles lowered the teacup and saucer to the desk. Raising her head, Lieutenant General Olivier Mira Armstrong slapped down the pen with which she had been writing with sufficient force to shake the desk. The dark brown liquid rippled in the cup. Light blue, decorated with small polar bears. Her favourite. “Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel. And congratulations on the promotion.” She could have asked any of the multitudes servants she had inherited, yet she trusted Miles’s steady hand above all others’.

With another firm salute, Miles seated himself in the chair across from her desk, folding his gloved hands in his lap. “Thank you. How have things been in Central, sir?”

She snorted. “The same as always. It’s crawling with idiots who were promoted for their apparently miraculous ability to not question authority. The new regime’s still weeding out the old buckets of shit.”

“I trust you intend to run during the upcoming elections.” The lieutenant colonel elevated an eyebrow at her over his thin circular shades. “Sir.”

“That you had to ask wounds me.” Bringing the cup to her mouth, Armstrong sipped. She smiled faintly. “Ah, just as I like it.”

MIles inclined his head. “Of course. Bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword.”

“How are things in Ishval? Has that scarred man chosen a name for himself yet?”

“He says he has not yet earned it. Otherwise, violence has been kept to a minimum, sir.” Miles paused. “As has Amestrisian involvement. Evidently the senior staff considers me white enough to ask as supervisor, particularly with regards to Roy Mustang.”

“I must say, that information specialist of his is quite useful both as a walking encyclopedia and as an unofficial hostage.” Armstrong took another sip, more delicately this time. “Dear Roy and his captain are visiting.”

Miles _hrm_ ed at that. “Oh?”

“You’ve dated before, haven’t you, Lieutenant Colonel? Specifically, you’ve dated women, haven’t you?” Armstrong’s features had not shifted in the slightest.

For once the lieutenant colonel’s naturally tranquil expression faltered as his brow furrowed. “Somewhat.”

When she settled the cup back into the saucer and turned the handle such that it were parallel to her hand, the cup rattled, and Miles’s eyebrows vanished into his hairline. “I would like to request some advice.”

“On how to date . . . women.” He hesitated, if for a moment, and she curled her lip. “Sir.”

Armstrong responded with an arched eyebrow of her own. “Is something the matter, Lieutenant Colonel?”

“Of course not. If anything—” She could hear the truth in the steady pulse of his voice. “—I’m mildly concerned for _my_ prospects, what with someone like you playing the field, sir.” His irises glittered dangerously. “Riza Hawkeye, I take it?”

She smirked. “You know me too well. Yes. Have you any advice?”

“I might know a thing or two of being feminine.” He leaned back in the chair, tapping his thumbs against one another, forehead creased in thought. “When is she arriving?”

“A few days.”

“Then we’d better get started.”

 

Returning to Central after the better part of two years spent in the sweltering heat of Ishval necessitated a trip to the nearest clothing store and a request for bundled winter clothing despite the summer’s heat lingering yet in the early autumn weather.

At least she had been blessed with the opportunity of seeing Ishval flourish once more. Though the work would take years and decades down the road, already she could see the foundations being dusted off or carved anew from the silica sand.

As she and Mustang parted ways temporarily after their two-year-long living in cramped quarters together, Hawkeye made her needed rendezvouses: to the house of Rebecca Catalina to spend a night chattering away and practising her sharpshooting skills with her best friend; to Kain Fuery’s dorm to check up on her Black Hayate, grown up even further over her absence; to Central HQ to say hello to Sciezka and Alex Armstrong and Maria Ross and Denny Brosh and her grandfather and Mrs Bradley and Selim and the rest; to Maria Ross’s house—which turns out to _be_ Catalina’s—to inquire as to when her best friend plans on getting hitched; to the graveside of Maes Hughes to tell him about Ishval and ask him for advice on a personal matter, only to run into Mustang, two bouquets of white roses passing in the night; to Gracia Hughes’s to sit down with her godchild of six years and her close friend since her days in Ishval, encountering Winry and Paninya vacationing from Rush Valley on Gracia’s rather plush couch; and at last to the Black Rose café to respond to a handwritten invitation from Lieutenant General and Führer-hopeful Olivier Mira Armstrong.

 

So. The Black Rose. Featuring Drachman-inspired food in a semiformal setting. Despite the meeting time on the letter indicating nine o’clock in the evening, Hawkeye arrived half an hour early to scope out the area. She knew Armstrong—trusted her to some extent—but a lieutenant of a political rival could never act too cautiously. Hawkeye dipped into the bathroom just prior to nine. Smoothed her simple white blouse and thin black jacket. Adjusted her loose dark skirt. Checked the flat soles of her shoes. Freshened the light coating of lipstick before returning to her seat at the reserved table.

She waited patiently, periodically examining her watch. 9:05. She considered leaving.

At length a blonde woman approached the table. High heels, a tight black dress, flaring red lipstick and eyeliner sharp enough to slay a homunculus. Hawkeye mused: She appeared far too official to be some sort of waiter, but then what would she be doing walking towards the table with such deliberate strides?

When the woman perches on the chair as though she were the God-Empress upon her throne and sharpens her gaze like perfect spheres carved of glacial ice, Hawkeye understood. A disguise.

She hadn’t recognised the general for the slicked-back hair in place of the usually prominent forelock.

Perhaps the captain had misjudged the urgency of the invitation.

“Good evening. What may I call you?”

General Armstrong rested her elbows on the table, and Hawkeye could sense them trembling. “Olivier.” The weakness startled her beyond anything else of the ensemble.

“Olivier.” The word tasted strange, but Hawkeye could work with it: disguise. “Call me Eliza—” No, she would follow Armstrong’s lead. “—Riza, then.”

Armstrong signalled the waiter. “May I order for you? I’ve been here before.” Hawkeye nodded, and Armstrong rattled off a rather obviously memorised list of items to the waiter, who acknowledged the myriad of dishes and courses flying towards zem with a swift partial bow. “Tell me, how has Ishval been?”

Glancing to the left and right in a mild attempt to comprehend the tactics employed, Hawkeye launched into a casual conversation. Armstrong smiled and nodded—in a surprisingly human manner—and replied with her own stories of Central, of the constant dogfighting—“More like catfighting,” Armstrong admitted darkly, much to Hawkeye’s amusement—of the men, women, and enbies striving for control of Amestris, of the reforms in the country boiling over with the reinstatement of the democratic elections. Hawkeye countered with tales of Ishval, of the restoration, of the stupidity of Mustang, which in turn prompted Armstrong to a snide quip about alchemists not knowing how to use their guns.

She glanced up questioningly at Hawkeye. “I presume you’ve shown him how to use _his_ , however.”

Laughing, Hawkeye vehemently denied any relation with Mustang. “We grew up together. If I see him as anything beyond a friend, he’s like my brother. Older brother.” She sighed. “And useless as an older brother, at that.”

Armstrong said nothing, but she smirked quietly over the lip of the coffee cup.

Little by little, conversation by conversation, Hawkeye found herself slipping further and further into a curious sense of comfort and ease. By the time the final courses were being brought out, Hawkeye had settled back in her chair. Perhaps Armstrong hadn’t called her on a mission after all, but for that of seeking peace after two lengthy years of rivalry at a distance.

“The other candidates and I have already agreed to no smear or attack campaigns of any kind,” Armstrong explained over desert of some type of jam-filled pastries called _pieroshki_ , or something of the sort; Hawkeye couldn’t quite make out the Drachman accent. “Mostly because my office’s brilliant posters brought everyone else but Mustang down in the polls by five to ten points within a week.”

Hawkeye burst out laughing. Balancing the wine flute between her middle and ring fingers, she drained half of the glass. She wasn’t drunk: She had work in the morning, and she understood her body sufficiently well to avoid something that embarrassing, expensive, and potentially dangerous as getting drunk off of her ass.

Yet she _did_ feel slightly light-headed. Perhaps not from the drink, but from the generally rosy glasses that had settled onto the bridge of her nose.

Armstrong called for the check. “Need a hand, Fullmetal?”

“Very funny. Can you steady me, at least until I can breathe some fresh air?”

When Hawkeye wrapped her arm around the general’s shoulders, she smelled perfume. Vanilla and lavender—a pleasant, alluring scent, and not at all what Hawkeye expected. Outside a handful of golden stars peppered the night sky, the moon just coming into view from behind a bank of silver-lined clouds.

Armstrong stroked a line up Hawkeye’s bare shoulder where the sleeve of the jacket had fallen low, and Hawkeye answered with an involuntary shiver. Maybe she had drunken more than she thought; she began to count back the number of champagne bottles she had seen in the ice bucket, the amount of times Armstrong had refilled their flutes.

“Do you have a ride?” the general was asking.

Hawkeye dipped her head and felt her hair, unusually light from the recent clipping, bounce against her neck. “I brought my car.”

“The same crappy black military-issued piece of shit?” With a condescending _tch_ , Armstrong led her to the evidently offending vehicle. Hawkeye stared down the windshield and contemplated the probability ot her driving safely home.

Suddenly phoning Fuery for a ride sounded more than mildly intelligent.

Steadily she became aware of Armstrong’s strong body still supporting hers. Of Armstrong’s fingers on her upper arm, of the pools of heat the fingertips left on her skin like tiny embers nestled in to warm her. “Are you okay, Riza?” asked Armstrong softly; the voice, low and silken smooth, surprised Hawkeye more than anything else during the whole of the date.

The date.

The mysterious invitation, the attractive apparel, the casual discussion, the paying for both dinners, the touches between them—

Hawkeye didn’t have to be part of the Investigation Department to add one and one to come up with two.

“. . . if you were into me,” she said, focusing her gaze on Armstrong’s eyes and observing the abrupt pupil dilation with a pleasant smile, “you could have simply told me.”

For the first time in her memory of the Ice Queen of Briggs, Hawkeye experience\d the pleasure of watching Armstrong flounder. Her eyebrows snapped together; she opened and closed her mouth repeated, her lipstick cracked and bleeding into the laugh lines around her mouth. “I didn’t—didn’t _say_ that—I didn’t—”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Hawkeye continued. She allowed her hand to stroll languidly down Armstrong’s shoulder to the hem of the black slip, which she traced just below the seam where Armstrong’s skin had heated to flame. “Don’t dress up like this next time, though. You look better in the tuxedos. From the military balls, you know?”

Armstrong clenched her jaw; with a choked noise of pain, she wrenched Hawkeye’s hand from her shoulder and dropped it with vitriol enough to slay the most tenacious flame. By the time she regained her voice, she had frozen in tone in arctic waters. “You’re drunk.”

“No.” Hawkeye’s gait had steadied. She stood erect, and saluted. “I’m _lightheaded_. Because of you. Thank you, for the warm welcome; it’s been a long two years.”

The general blinked, once, and pursed her lips. “If you’re not drunk, then . . . ?”

Shutting her eyes and huffing in exasperation, Hawkeye rubbed her right temple with two fingers. “God, you’re even more oblivious than Roy, which is quite the achievement.” She opened one eye slightly. “May I kiss you, Olivier?”

While Armstrong continued to stare, the tip of the long forelock uncurled from the rest of her carefully gelled hair to spring neatly back into place, and Hawkeye could not resist the whuffling laughter that threatened to overtake her. As she laughed she felt Armstrong’s grip tight around her wrists—Armstrong’s breath hot on her lips—Armstrong’s tongue wet and writhing in her mouth.

Hawkeye returned the kiss with equal gusto, at least until she sensed her centre of balance shift. Grabbing Armstrong’s hips, she heard the clatter of Armstrong’s clicking heels, and then Armstrong’s weight hit her stomach, gravity hit her spine, and the back of her head hit the unrelenting stretch of sidewalk.

 

“Truth be told,” Armstrong remarked as she gratefully took the saucer into her palms, “I didn’t expect the first date to be spent mostly in the emergency room.”

“She did arrange for a second, however,” Miles noted, stirring in an extra cube of sugar to his cup. “And I daresay you’ll look much more ravishing in masculine wear, sir, as Hawkeye suggested.”

“Mm.” She swallowed a mouthful of tea. “Ah, just as I like it—”

“—bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword.” Miles smiled at her across her desk. Armstrong snorted. “I know you well, sir.”

Armstrong lowered her hand to the desk. “Then why stuff me in a dress like some fool with a head of wet carton?”

“So that she would notice, of course.” He took a thoughtful sip while she arched an eyebrow, halfway offended and halfway amused.

“Tch. You bastard.”

Miles pushed his shades further up the bridge of his nose. “Yes, sir.”

“But thank you.”

“Yes, _sir_.”


End file.
